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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5773695" data-attributes="member: 27160">If you say so. To be explicit, though, let me outline a subject I have come accross this issue.I used to shoot longbow (English, not American - the American 'flatbow' is quite a different beast). I have a pretty good idea of what a longbow can do IRL. Playing in a game run by a DM who has no such experience, though, I end up in a weird bind if we don't stick to game rules that say exactly what a longbow can do. Because either I come accross as a jerk when I tell the DM that what he is narrating is complete rubbish, or I have no clue about what a longbow is supposed to be capable of in this world, when both I and my character (a longbow expert, let's say) should absolutely have a good idea of how a longbow will perform.I would much rather have an open rule set that defines what the longbow can do in this game world - even if it is completely different from what I know one can do in real life - than have to purposefully ignore everything I know about bows and bowyery in order to try to second-guess what the DM of this specific game thinks (has read/once heard or whatever) a longbow is capable of.Much the same applies with the way longswords, shields and such are used in combat since I spent time watching the guys at the Royal Armouries spar using the techniques reconstructed from original manuscripts such as I33 and so on. It made me realise that the model fantasy movies and such like have given many/most fantasy fans of the way "medieval" sword-and-board combat works is, to say the least, wildly inaccurate. The result now is that, absent detailed discussions, I have no clue whether a DM I am playing with views sword and shield combat in a "fantasy" mode or a "best reconstruction to date" mode. Without knowing which of these is their model (for this specific game), I am just guessing about what their supposedly "informative" descriptions really mean.Sure - which is why, arguably, the character's skill level should factor into an "error margin" for the DC given, which could be above or below the "real" DC. This is fine, in theory. In practice, though, I have found it to be hardly ever worthwhile; the die roll already does a pretty good job of providing the "error margin" variability, without overcomplicating the process of informing the player what the situation is.The only "context" that is going to be useful is what ideas about the "reality" of how things as diverse as archery, swordfighting and rock climbing work are governing in the mental world-model of the DM. Unless you either (a) have a rule system that defines these things in game terms for this game world, or (b) have systems that distribute the decisions about these things and define how the decisions are made and how character skills "protect" from that rather than how the world works, this issue will always crop up, whether recognised or not, and whether valued, or not.To be honest, I can see a valid issue to be solved, here. If a group wants immersive play, communicating DCs is going to be intrusive to such immersion. My solution, though, is not to give players purely world-based information and then rule on in-game facts as DM. That way the issues with areas the players are genuinely knowledgeable about but the DM is not (or vice versa) will inevitably arise. It is simply, as originally suggested in Theatrix, I believe, to allow the player to have a "locus of control" determined by their character's skill in the game situation.Yes, mea culpa on the context, but it seemed like the discussion was (once again) slipping into generalising point that only apply in a specific context.To be clearer, I'm not saying those things make "dreaming play" or "immersion" impossible - just that, if I wanted to run a game centred on world exploration and immersion, I would choose other methods in those areas. If you are happy with the system you have for the sort of game you seem uniquely to prefer, go for it! I'm just saying that you could make your own task easier, in my experience, by switching how you handle those specific rules elements (as well as a few others, to a smaller degree).Personally, I have decided that D&D is the wrong base system for such games - so I simply use a different one (well, several, actually).</blockquote>

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